Chapter 4 #4
I snort in amusement. “Private Frank tells me you can barely put anyone on the ground, never mind in it. And, see, I know you’ve never met anyone like me—bet you barely get out of the forest here—but I’ve met a hundred boys like you. Bark, no bite. Very forgettable.”
Private Bernard smirks, the anger in him lurking beneath the surface. “All right, then. Why don’t you start with the kid? This way we can see if you’re up to playing with the big dogs.”
“Why, do you know any big dogs? Only thing I see around here are runts.”
“Real funny. Square up, Piccolo.”
Knowing I’m being watched and judged, especially by a particularly bright pair of amber eyes across the field, pumps me with enough adrenaline to gain some semblance of confidence.
It isn’t easy, but failing in front of these people is not something I’m willing to do.
I may be out of my element, but I’m still Luciana Piccolo. Whatever that means.
Private Frank isn’t easy to beat. Though tiny, like Taylor she uses a superior skill set to try and take me down.
Fortunately, Taylor’s instructions prove useful, and my training, coupled with my height and weight, allows me to finally get her to yield through sheer force.
Private Bernard is a tougher match. He’s larger and stronger, and within little time the wind is knocked out of me and I’m on my back, at quite the disadvantage.
But I know what he’s going to do. Awareness.
Anticipation. He’s going to try and straddle me with his full weight.
Not the first man to try that with me, and not the first man to fail.
Lifting my left knee, he prepares to block it, but I switch and slam my right knee into his side, and my left foot near his groin.
He crumbles in surprise and pain, writhing and falling to the side.
Quickly I push him onto his stomach and sit astride his butt, wrenching his arms in front of me.
Sweating and smug, I hold him down as best I can. “Yield, princess?”
“Ow, yes.” Swiftly, I rise to my feet and offer my hand to him. He ignores it and gets himself up with a wince. “Goddamnit. Can’t believe I got my ass handed to me by a goddamn Piccolo.”
“Duh. You don’t train privately with Eos without picking up something.” Private Frank turns to me with wide eyes. “Can you teach me, like, everything she taught you?”
Across the field, I catch the attention of Captain Taylor, who gives me only a slight nod in spite of my triumphant success. Looks like I’m going to have to hand a lot more people their butts before I get any real praise. But it’s something.
Sometimes, a little something is everything.
Our final day is mild for late November, warming the frozen ground and frost-tipped grass.
We do calisthenics outside for most of the morning, then retreat into a humid gymnasium in the late afternoon.
Thin blue mats line the floor, the faint smell of floor cleaner and sweat in the air.
It’s amazing how the former lives of buildings remain inside them long after they’ve been reincarnated.
Everything about this room screams “adolescent gym,” though I imagine it hasn’t lived that life in a long time.
“If you take away only one thing from your time here, it should be this lesson. Non-fatally disengaging an enemy.” Taylor squares up, feet shoulder-width apart, and takes my hand.
My fingertips brush the edge of her eyelashes as she puts my hand right at her eyes.
“Gouge the eyes out. You will disorient your attacker enough to get away, or disarm them. In extreme circumstances you can rip the eyeballs out. It may deter other attackers, though that is more fatal, of course.”
“Gross.” I sigh impatiently as she lowers her hand to the tip of my nose.
“I know, push the nose up into the brain, blah blah.” Her eyes follow the movement as I position my pinky against her neck.
“Hit them in the jugular.” I step forward and put my foot on hers.
“Instep. And the money shot—a knee to the groin. I grew up in New York City, you think I don’t know where to hit a guy? ”
“I think you have never had to defend yourself from someone trying to kill you,” she says. “Trust me, it is different.”
Suddenly, my arms are wrenched behind my back, pressed against Mason’s chest. I struggle mightily for a while as Taylor observes with an even expression.
In vain, I try to step on his feet, but he dodges me.
While he’s not applying pressure, I’m panicking because I can’t get loose. “Put your right leg behind his legs.”
“What?”
“Put your right leg behind his legs. This person has you in a bear hug. They could be squeezing the life out of you, cracking your ribs. Do it.” I do as she tells me and my foot is between his, behind us both.
“Pull your foot in and fall back on him.” We crash to the ground.
“Knee him in the groin.” Rapidly I flip over, the rounded part of my knee hitting a hard cup which I’m thankful for, as I’m sure he is as well.
“Now strike his face with your elbow.” My elbow swings at his face but I don’t hit him.
I realize I’m free of his grip and scramble to my feet.
“Ha ha!” I raise my hands in the air triumphantly. Taylor rolls her eyes at me as Mason lumbers to his feet. “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
He smiles and waves me off. “Nah. I’m used to Taylor hitting me. She goes hard.”
“Do it again. This time faster.”
Taylor watches as Mason and I return to our positions and immediately I swipe my leg around and drop us to the ground, repeating my shots to his groin and face, confidently rising to my feet. We practice through it a few more times and Taylor’s face relents a crooked smile.
“Very good. You improve exponentially when not freaking out.”
“Excuse me for panicking because someone was trying to prevent me from breathing,” I shoot back with a glare.
She places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It is imperative you do not panic in the face of danger. Fear is the mind-killer.”
I’ve heard that before. Squinting at her, I ask, “You’ve read Dune? When did you find the time to read Dune? In between assassinations and breaking into my house?”
“It’s my favorite,” she says with surprising sheepishness. Her eyes blink up at me. “I never broke into your house.”
“Oh? You were invited? Well, there’s egg on my face.”
As usual, she is unperturbed by my sarcasm. “There was always a way to enter your mansion. Your window was unlocked almost constantly due to your flagrant disregard for local curfews.”
My eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. “On how many occasions were you in my room?”
“Lots of times,” she says, face neutral. My glare intensifies. “Not lots, I guess.” Precious little privacy existed at home; my room was one of the few places I could be alone. She backpedals. “Less than ten?”
“Wonderful, ‘less than ten.’ Great to know some half-cocked killer lurked in my bedroom ‘less than ten’ times. Was I ever there?”
She rubs the back of her neck and looks to Mason, who purposely feigns interest in the walls. “Once. You were asleep.”
“You watched me sleep?” My indignant voice bounces against the brick walls.
“I did not ‘watch you sleep,’ you narcissist,” she enunciates, rankled by my outburst. “I was testing the nighttime security. You were rarely home that late. I did not expect you.”
“Fantastic.” Papa should be glad he sleeps with a guard posted at his door, as she probably could’ve killed him then. I try not to think about how easily she could’ve killed me. “Did you steal what you needed?”
“I was not there to burglarize, Miss Piccolo. I am not a criminal.” I give her a droll look and she reluctantly relents. “In the traditional sense.”
“No, an agent of rebellion is certainly no criminal. Definitely not treason.”
“Whatever,” she replies, impatient. “Next is the chokehold.”
“Goody.”
After about an hour of the super fun chokehold exercise, Mason is called away. Once he’s out the door, Taylor takes out a gun from behind her. I freeze. “What is that?”
“A gun.”
“Okay, yes, but why are you pointing it at me?”
“Look, chances are if someone has a gun to your head, they are going to shoot you and you will die. However, on occasion, you may have enough time to avoid it.” I know my face must drain of color because Taylor is giving me that hard stare again.
We square off for a few moments before my lip trembles, and she lowers the gun to the ground.
“I am not going to shoot you, so please stop looking at me like that.”
“Not unless Lady Leather tells you to.” Once the quivering words leave my mouth they hang in the air, heavy and looming.
“Besides, you’re breaking your precious gun safety rules.
‘Never put your finger on the trigger unless you plan to pull it.’ ‘Check every side of the object you intend to shoot.’ And what was that big one?
‘Don’t point your gun at something you don’t intend to kill. ’”
“It is not loaded, see?” She opens the side of the gun and spins the empty revolver. “I will not put my finger near the trigger, but I am glad you are listening. Now then, if you try to reach for the gun, you will get shot.”
“I remember that from the first time you pointed a gun in my face.”
“First, get your head out of the line of the barrel. Duck down and put your hands up to grab my hands. Once you do that, kick me in the groin. The final step is to push the gun into my chest and try to pull it away from me.”
It takes me well over an hour, but eventually I get the steps down and disarm Taylor within seconds. She’s allowed this, of course, but I’ve still done it. Upon realizing the gun is in my hand, I drop it on the floor like it’s on fire.
“This works because you have the element of surprise,” she says.
“People expect others to be so paralyzed with fear by a gun that they cannot defend themselves. Always make someone pay for arrogance.” Taylor picks up the gun and tosses it far away from us, letting it skid across the mats.
“You did well today. There are a lot of ways to kill someone, but knowing how to peacefully disengage is just as, if not more so, important. We see a lot of death in the Order, and it is important to me not to add to that total unnecessarily.”
We sit down cross-legged on the mats. Maybe it’s the huge gym, maybe it’s her unguarded expression, but Taylor looks small in a way she never has before. More her age, a teenager burgeoning on womanhood, strapped to her destiny like it’s a ticking time bomb.
“What kind of assassin doesn’t like to kill people?”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “What kind of heiress believes in equality?”
In lieu of responding, I lean back on my palms and look up at the ceiling.
Thick cobwebs strain from beam to beam, clutching to exposed metal and peeling paint.
In another lifetime, kids populated this gym, sneakers squeaking against the waxed floors, cheering on some sport or another.
Sweat and teenage drama, maybe streamers and garland for celebrations.
I envy them, these ghosts of the past, and their uncomplicated lives.
“Do you like this?”
Taylor tilts her head. “What?”
I gesture at our surroundings. “This. Assassinations and plotting and maiming and being maimed. This life.”
She looks around the room, as if taking in her entire life for the first time. “I don’t know anything else. I guess I—” She cuts herself off with a sigh. “I try to not let what I am become who I am.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
Taylor nods. “I imagine you would.”
Her unexpectedly earnest tone arouses my suspicion and dread about the length of time I was under surveillance. No matter how deadly the woman in front of me is, I’ve not been known to beat around the bush. “How long did you watch me?”
Taylor scrunches her face in thought. “Two years?”
“Did you follow me outside the mansion?”
“On a handful of occasions, yes.”
I should be embarrassed, but I’m mostly peeved that my privacy was so frequently and flagrantly violated by everyone without remorse. “How long were you at the ball before I got home?”
She pauses. “About forty-five minutes.”
“Sounds like plenty of time for Theia’s right hand to carry out her mission.”
“Your conspicuous absence made Leader Piccolo agitated and hard to get alone. I had no interest in a public execution. Made more difficult by other guests interrupting me with offers to dance. Including your friend James Danzino, Junior.”
A laugh bursts out of me as I try to picture that human water balloon trying to charm the stony woman in front of me. “And you didn’t fall head over heels for him immediately?”
“I slipped away when he became distracted by Leader Piccolo’s return downstairs.” Body squirming, she stares down at the mat. “He touched me when he talked and I do not like to be touched. As I told you at the ball, I rebuffed him. Impolitely.”
The thought of Taylor being commodified by that man-child makes my gut churn. “He has the charm of a toenail clipping, and half as smart as one.”
“He was the most pompous, self-aggrandizing person in attendance. No small feat in that crowd.”
“Typical of the type of man with whom Papa would like me to marry and breed.” It’s not marriage or motherhood that repulses me, but rather the men who wish to fill that role.
They reek of entitlement and a false sense of confidence.
It’s a putrid scent. “Ludicrously wealthy, Italian, and stupid enough to be a pawn in an arranged marriage.” Taylor takes this all in with a faintly amused grin, and I sigh.
“It was a risky move to ask me to dance. Though I did appreciate the rescue.”
“Being chivalrous was not my intent.”
“You don’t say?”
“But it was not as hazardous as you assume. The most inconspicuous place for me was at your side.” She rises to her feet and pads over to retrieve her gun. “It ensured nobody was looking at me. Nobody saw me. All they saw was you.”
“That’s not true.” I take her outstretched hand and pull myself to my feet. “I saw you.”
Taylor lifts her lips into a firm, melancholic smile. “No, Miss Piccolo. I don’t think you did.”